For Emel Magazine - August 2008 - issue 47
I am helping Samir Malik collect his pots of ink and instruments whilst chasing sheets of paper being blown amongst brambles as we settle down in the allotment that surrounds his cottage studio in Ealing. Immediately the interviewee is coming across as humble as the surroundings and the haphazard creative environment soon blends into the in-depth conversation that unfolds.
He is discussing how being in a state of uncertainty doesn’t feel uncomfortable for him as it’s where lies inspiration and creativity and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Funnily enough he also relates how the discomfort one day had him calling up a wealthy and well known Australian artist asking for advice on how to charge millions for work! The innocent pursuit of a material wealth bought a powerful immaterial truth with Samir being responded to with: “thousands of years from now, people will still see as much relevance in your art as they do today”.
Samir is globally recognized for his art work which inspire wonderment, are expressive in an avante garde form and innovatively focus not only on Arabic text but Islamic symbols also. What I understand of Islamic Caligraphy is that it is an aspect of Islamic Art that has evolved alongside the religion of Islam and the Arabic language using geometry. It is the art of writing which gives form to signs in an expressive and harmonious manner. Arabic calligraphy is regarded as the expression of the divine with a strong parallel tradition to the Aramaic and Hebrew scholars and it was in Damascus where Samir Malik took his first steps in learning this ancient art.
Born in Nairobi on 2nd January 1970, Samir came to the UK in 1975 and at the age of six he was painting with oils, at the age of eight he begun printing and once he was ten years old his father, in a well meaning sort of way, confiscated all his art ‘stuff’ with the intention that Samir should become a more conventional type of professional. True to his fathers’ wishes, once Samir emerged out of education he embarked upon a career in Osteopathic medicine.
In adulthood a desire for travel and a change of surroundings took him to Germany where he lived for 10 years practicing Osteopathy amongst an artist community which cosmically reignited his interest in art. Iin January 2003, he left his life of form in Germany which entailed an impressive apartment and thousands of books, and flew to Damascus. Hunger and existential abandon led him to study Hebrew in Jerusalem. It was there that he had his first and long-time-coming ‘light-bulb-moment’.
Upon the mention of the arrival of a friend’s cousin named ‘Fahdi’, Samir immediately became curious and reflective about the meaning of this name; ‘he who heals the hearts of man through the will of God’. Upon learning the meaning he realized his purpose once again, after years of departing from his artistic talents, this is what he wanted to accomplish through his art.
Shortly after, he was drinking his daily bad coffee in a souk shop when his sister recommended he study calligraphy at Damascus University. Open to opportunities, he began and was immediately hooked. Although it appeared as if he wasn’t excelling at first, his tutors saw great potential in his ability. For a duration of six months he committed 8 hours per day to learning. Completing his study he felt that any art he would create would have to be something new since he wanted to show people something they hadn’t seen before.
Historically, Islamic Art has been used to express an experience of the divine using geometry and calligraphy. Samirs’ aim has been to revive the spirit of classical art for contemporary society in a contemporary form. His artistic expression is a direct result of his personal journey and reflects, as he so often puts it, ‘an investigation’. His intention behind the art is a desire to know humanity, which he does through Islam, and the creative expression (his artwork) are his findings. Since 2002 his collection of artworks entitled ‘Fahdi’ have continued to express this.
Commentators ask why he writes and rewrites ‘God’ so much; it’s because he is in search to know what God is for him. He is engaged with the process of creation and “this investigation is an evolving one which forms part of the creative process” where he’ll see colours, form, shapes or types of canvass. He’ll begin a piece and rework it until it feels right rather than just looking right.
“You can’t touch the divine but you can feel it” and when painting Samir fuses different artistic traditions such as Chinese calligraphy into his work. Appealing to a global audience and in part influenced by many global characters from his travels, he sees his work forcing people to re-evaluate and ask pertinent questions such as ‘Who are we?’; ‘Where do we come from?’; ‘Where are we going to?’; the same questions he asks as well.
These aren’t however abstract concepts or ideas that he investigates since he is relating everything back to Islam and the message of the Qur’aan. When he started his series of “Bismillah Irahmaniraheem” he engaged with the ideas of compassion, peace, love and mercy which he says are central to Islam.
“The prophet (saw) had compassion, love and mercy and being a Muslim means to submit to something and the context that you live your life in becomes ‘Bismillah Irrahmaaniraheem’ - mercy and compassion for everyone”….”We can become flippant, so I want my art to be like a doorway into our spirituality”.
Non-Muslim clients who cannot read Arabic have been able to identify and recognize the message behind the form. Instances like this drive Samir to want to paint without form, to express spontaneously and dynamically. Illustrating this idea was a time when he was inspired to capture an image of Imam Ali after hearing a story about the formidable character on the battlefield. Wanting to but struggling to capture him in a painting, an intensity drove Samir wild with his instruments and paint. When the canvass was dry his mother looked at it, not knowing a thing about it, and immediately observed “there’s a man on a horse with a sword”.
The symbol of the Kabbah has recently been quite a poignant consideration. He believes that the investigation of this holds the key for him to go deeper into spirituality. When he went on Hajj in 2001 he wanted to be part of the ‘thawaf’ where he always saw all being equal but individually special and part of a whole. It was saddening at the time since he was going there with so many expectations and now laughingly he admits how severely let down and disappointed he was when he experienced Muslims pushing and shoving him whilst praying, being blackmailed and cheated out of a package tour he paid for.
He now sees great beauty in such imperfection and in that imperfection he reflects that “we can have terrible wrongdoings but unimaginable beauty”. He relates verses from the Qur’aan when the Angels ask the Creator why he is creating man from such inferior matter (clay). Samir realizes how he forms part of the imperfect humanity and that he does not wish to judge himself or anybody else but just wishes to strive and express.
“There is a hunger and movement in the art world since people are curious about who Muslims are…We are part of this society but we are still foreign…what does it mean to be Muslim? We represent it by just being Muslim…we are creating who Muslim’s will be for humanity”.
A future project is something that he is in the process of crafting out whereby he would bring together a collective of Muslim artists from all over the UK and possibly the world with a theme “we come in peace”. This would introduce the Muslim community to the mainstream which is currently governed by negative stereotypes.
Samir has been commissioned by organizations such as IslamExpo, The Muslim Literary Society, The Muslim Council of Britain and The Big Issue Foundation. Apart from accepting commissions he is has been happily occupied with teaching for over four years and loves giving people the space to allow them to investigate who they are through art. Creating opportunities for people to find themselves in a creative space where they are free to express themselves is why he wants to always focus on teaching and giving back.
Samir acknowledges the great responsibility he feels in being an Islamic artist. It is a pivotal time since “non-Muslims are looking to Muslims to learn more about our faith and what we stand for”. Not necessarily waving the Muslim flag, but by being Muslim and existing Samir states how we are an expression of Islam and whether you desire it or not we represent Islam to the curious masses.
His art captures the message of Islam which is about humanity and creation and I believe he will continue to be instrumental in sharing this message with the world. To have a piece of his work hanging on your wall would mean having a reminder of an eternal, evolving and sincere human search to learn more of humanity’s purpose.
Currently exhibits every Sunday at The Bayswater Road Gallery, London, pitch 34.
‘FAHDI’ http://www.samirmalik.com/
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
"The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" a book by Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe
Book Review for Emel Magazine - July 2006 - issue 46
Ilan Pappe is one of a few Israeli-Jewish historians who has re-examined the Israeli-Palestine conflict in a way that is so controversial, it has caused many Israeli’s to believe him to be a mercenary working for the Arab world. This book deals with Israeli policy in 1948 which in Pappe’s words surmounted to the ‘expropriations of Palestinian property and/or campaigns of ethnic cleansing’ in and around this period of time.
In a drive for an exclusively Jewish state the Zionist forces uprooted 800,000 Palestinian people destroying 531 villages. Pappe argues that ‘this crime was utterly forgotten and erased from minds and memories’ and the ideology that enabled the depopulation of half of Palestine’s native people in 1948 is ‘still alive and continues to drive the inexorable cleansing of those Palestinians who live their today’.
Shocking, telling and illuminating, Pappe’s research and findings come from declassified Israeli government papers and unlike many historians before him, he uses Arab sources and turns to oral history to achieve a better grasp of what he calls was the ‘systematic planning behind the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948’.
He conjectures that there is no other way for us to fully understand the roots of the contemporary conflict and he is encouraged by others who like him are now aiming to provide a more truthful description of the enormity of the crimes the Israeli soldiers committed in and since 1948.
The conviction with which Pappe delivers the histories of unrecognised crimes against the Palestinian people has caused respected historians and writers like John Pilger to appraise him to be “Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian”. This very conviction led Pappe in 2007 to endorse a boycott of Israeli Universities which led to his resignation as Senior Lecturer from the University of Haifa.
In the book Pappe quotes a fellow Israeli-Jewish Professor at Haifa University: “…if we want to remain alive, we have to kill and kill and kill […] if we don’t […] we cease to exist. […] Unilateral separation doesn’t guarantee ‘peace’ – it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelmingly majority of Jews.”
Pappe’s pivotal message is that he wants to make a case for the ‘paradigm of ethnic cleansing’ and use it to replace the ‘paradigm of war’ as the basis for current and future scholarly research and public debate about the unending conflict. Pappe argues that without recognition of such crimes against humanity, punishable by international law, a solution to the conflict cannot be found.
Who are to blame and who need to be held accountable? A caucus of characters, well known to most readers of the subject, who prepared the plans for the ethnic cleansing and supervised its execution until they successfully uprooted half of Palestine’s native population. Pappe calls for the unconditional return of the refugees to their homes.
The book reconstructs the methods used for executing the master plan of expulsion and destruction, exposes the ideology behind such acts and explains how such an ideology continues in a variety of means today. A heart-wrenching account for any reader to absorb especially since these crimes are still, regarded as ‘alleged’.
On the subject of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, previous to the publishing of this work, Pappe has been recorded to have warned that the ‘violent storm’ raging will continue to do so through the Arab and Muslim worlds and also within Britain and the United States as long as the democratic superpowers and bodies remain inactive.
Still, Pappe is optimistic about the movement of Israeli Jews like him who are going against the grain, be they few and far between; it is they that he believes hold the key to reconciliation and peace in the torn land of Palestine.
Ilan Pappe is one of a few Israeli-Jewish historians who has re-examined the Israeli-Palestine conflict in a way that is so controversial, it has caused many Israeli’s to believe him to be a mercenary working for the Arab world. This book deals with Israeli policy in 1948 which in Pappe’s words surmounted to the ‘expropriations of Palestinian property and/or campaigns of ethnic cleansing’ in and around this period of time.
In a drive for an exclusively Jewish state the Zionist forces uprooted 800,000 Palestinian people destroying 531 villages. Pappe argues that ‘this crime was utterly forgotten and erased from minds and memories’ and the ideology that enabled the depopulation of half of Palestine’s native people in 1948 is ‘still alive and continues to drive the inexorable cleansing of those Palestinians who live their today’.
Shocking, telling and illuminating, Pappe’s research and findings come from declassified Israeli government papers and unlike many historians before him, he uses Arab sources and turns to oral history to achieve a better grasp of what he calls was the ‘systematic planning behind the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948’.
He conjectures that there is no other way for us to fully understand the roots of the contemporary conflict and he is encouraged by others who like him are now aiming to provide a more truthful description of the enormity of the crimes the Israeli soldiers committed in and since 1948.
The conviction with which Pappe delivers the histories of unrecognised crimes against the Palestinian people has caused respected historians and writers like John Pilger to appraise him to be “Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian”. This very conviction led Pappe in 2007 to endorse a boycott of Israeli Universities which led to his resignation as Senior Lecturer from the University of Haifa.
In the book Pappe quotes a fellow Israeli-Jewish Professor at Haifa University: “…if we want to remain alive, we have to kill and kill and kill […] if we don’t […] we cease to exist. […] Unilateral separation doesn’t guarantee ‘peace’ – it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelmingly majority of Jews.”
Pappe’s pivotal message is that he wants to make a case for the ‘paradigm of ethnic cleansing’ and use it to replace the ‘paradigm of war’ as the basis for current and future scholarly research and public debate about the unending conflict. Pappe argues that without recognition of such crimes against humanity, punishable by international law, a solution to the conflict cannot be found.
Who are to blame and who need to be held accountable? A caucus of characters, well known to most readers of the subject, who prepared the plans for the ethnic cleansing and supervised its execution until they successfully uprooted half of Palestine’s native population. Pappe calls for the unconditional return of the refugees to their homes.
The book reconstructs the methods used for executing the master plan of expulsion and destruction, exposes the ideology behind such acts and explains how such an ideology continues in a variety of means today. A heart-wrenching account for any reader to absorb especially since these crimes are still, regarded as ‘alleged’.
On the subject of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, previous to the publishing of this work, Pappe has been recorded to have warned that the ‘violent storm’ raging will continue to do so through the Arab and Muslim worlds and also within Britain and the United States as long as the democratic superpowers and bodies remain inactive.
Still, Pappe is optimistic about the movement of Israeli Jews like him who are going against the grain, be they few and far between; it is they that he believes hold the key to reconciliation and peace in the torn land of Palestine.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Olympics come to London
For Emel Magazine - April 2008 - issue 43
"The Olympics are coming to town this month, in the shape of the Olympic Flame as part of the global Torch Relay in the run up to the Beijing Games. In anticipation of the London Olympics in just four years time, Serena Syed Desai talks to some Muslim torchbearers about this historic occasion".
On 6th April 2008, the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay will light up the city of London. The Olumpic flame will be carried through London by 80 hand picked torchbearers, leading to the lighting of a cauldron by the final torchbearer. There will undoubtedly be a buzz as the relay passes through a number of boroughs, encompassing diverse communities who will unite for a unique London celebration. Thus begins the anticipation of excitement as London readies itself to welcome the Olympics to its turf for the third time in 2012, after previously hosting it in 1908 and 1948.
Historically, and mythically, the origins of the Olympic Flame lie in ancient Greece. When Prometheus, the god of forethought and crafty counsel stole fire from Zeus, he secretly gave it to mankind hidden inside a fennel stalk. In commemoration of this, the first torch was ignited to mark the inaugural Olympic Games held in 776 BCE at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, staged in honour of the gods, including Prometheus.
Every four years for over a millennium afterwards, the torch was kept alight during the Games, and rival city-states throughout Greece cast aside their differences....
"The Olympics are coming to town this month, in the shape of the Olympic Flame as part of the global Torch Relay in the run up to the Beijing Games. In anticipation of the London Olympics in just four years time, Serena Syed Desai talks to some Muslim torchbearers about this historic occasion".
On 6th April 2008, the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay will light up the city of London. The Olumpic flame will be carried through London by 80 hand picked torchbearers, leading to the lighting of a cauldron by the final torchbearer. There will undoubtedly be a buzz as the relay passes through a number of boroughs, encompassing diverse communities who will unite for a unique London celebration. Thus begins the anticipation of excitement as London readies itself to welcome the Olympics to its turf for the third time in 2012, after previously hosting it in 1908 and 1948.
Historically, and mythically, the origins of the Olympic Flame lie in ancient Greece. When Prometheus, the god of forethought and crafty counsel stole fire from Zeus, he secretly gave it to mankind hidden inside a fennel stalk. In commemoration of this, the first torch was ignited to mark the inaugural Olympic Games held in 776 BCE at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, staged in honour of the gods, including Prometheus.
Every four years for over a millennium afterwards, the torch was kept alight during the Games, and rival city-states throughout Greece cast aside their differences....
Thursday, January 3, 2008
"Statement of Regret" - A new play by Kwame Kwei-Armah
Reviewed for Emel Magazine - January 2008 issue
Kwame Kwei-Armah’s new play, Statement of Regret, the final part of his trilogy at the National Theatre, opened on the 14th November. Overflowing with important and relevant issues for the British black community, Kwame is questioning the cohesiveness of the latter.
The impressive stage setting is the plush London office of an imaginary black political think-tank, whose West Indian founder Kwaku Mackenzie (played by Don Warrington) resembles a Shakespearean King Lear, a tragic disintegrating hero, whose obsessive and drunken grief over the death of his West Indian immigrant father, leads him to lose touch of reality and brings about the downfall of a once thriving Institute.
Kwaku is entirely ignorant of the declining media interest in his organisation, jointly run by longstanding loyal friend and colleague Michael Akinbola (played by Clon McFarlane). Michael innocently encourages an office debate on future projects, siding with the young African hotshot and head of Policy Idrissa.
Immediately at loggerheads with Kwaku, Idrissa argues how their agenda is “old-school” and brands Kwaku’s reparations for slavery as ‘irrelevant’ and ‘backward’. One of a long list of Idrissa’s ideas is to research why black people of African origin do better than Afro-Caribbean’s in education, which leads us into its central theme.
Quoted, paraphrased and stiffening the dialogue is the work of American Social Scientist, Dr Joy De Gruy Leary, whose research on how Afro-Carribeans have been infected by feelings of inferiority and helplessness, has debilitated them to this very day, more so than their African brothers.
An exception to this is young Oxford Scholar Adrian, the West Indian ‘ghetto-kid done good’ who also happens to be Kwaku’s illegitimate son. "Are you afraid that a little white man lurks beneath that deep chocolate skin? Yes, that’s your story isn’t it? You’re really a little coconut parading as a radical black intellectual."
Epitomising the “punchiness” of the play, Idrissa’s amusing and intelligent sparring with Adrian propels the plot through a terrain of debate, an abundance of swearing and West Indian argot, emotionally provoking scenes, as well as derogatory name-calling which all produced gasps from a majority black audience.
An increasingly grief and guilt-ridden Kwaku ignores his forward-thinking staff and becomes consumed with the idea that Caribbean blacks are treated inferior by their African so-called brothers. Insisting on reparations for his own people he favours his illegitimate West Indian son over his own half-African son, Kwaku Junior (rising star Javone Prince).
Further entrenching the divide between African and Afro-Caribbean, two tribes unwillingly form which mirrors the unrest in the wide black community. The bottom line, as Dr Leary puts it, is that people in the African diaspora “don’t trust each other enough – if we can have unity, there is nothing that can stop us”. Kwaku Junior echoes this sentiment after many amusing and heart-warming outpourings, and profoundly proclaims "if we get caught up in our own shit, no one wins".
Overwhelmed with so many themes and plentiful emotionally dramatic scenes, one wishes that perhaps the heavy academic and historical facts could have been left out. Still, the message about the fractious black community turning on itself is illustrated well, using an extremely talented cast of the best black talent around.
An informative, provocative and amusing play that manages to grab the issue of inter-racial conflict with both hands (plus a textbook), is perhaps and I hope also alluding to how older 2nd generational immigrants have failed to challenge inherited ideas of ‘looking after your own’. The Cottesloe theatre (NT) will I am sure still be enjoying packed audiences for the duration of this show.
'Statement of Regret' (020-7452 3000) to 10 Jan; NT Cottesloe, London
Friday, December 14, 2007
Killing God? - The Golden Compass
This is what the award winning British Author, Phillip Pullman has been accused of. The first book of his trilogy “His Dark Materials” has been recently adapted by Director Chris Weitz for New line Cinema’s most expensive film ever made: ‘The Golden Compass’.
Having opened in the U.K on 5th December, this movie adaptation of the first book “Northern Lights” has us follow the adventures of a streetwise 12 year old girl called Lyra Belacqua (played by Dakota Blue Richards). She travels through multiple worlds populated by witches (one of whom is played by Eva Green), armour-plated bears, and sinister ecclesiastical assassins to defeat the oppressive forces of the ‘ruling’ order, a nefarious church known as the “Magesterium”.
The movie is the bait for the books which are allegedly and fundamentally anti-religion. One of the novel’s pagan characters puts it, “every church is the same: control, destroy, and obliterate every good feeling”. The books get even darker with adult themes such as female circumcision and castration.
Given this, it seems frightening that Pullman wants kids to buy the books after having watched ‘The Golden Compass’. He reportedly wants kids to decide ‘against god and the kingdom of heaven’ which has drawn fire from concerned Christians, who have dubbed Pullman’s work as ‘atheism for kids’.
Apparently a proud atheist, and described as the most dangerous author in Britain, Pullman wants to ‘kill God’ in the minds of children. Having sold 15 million copies worldwide, he opposes C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” and wrote the trilogy in contrast to the latter. His long term aim is to convince us to object to ideological tyranny which endorses a rejection of this world, in favour of an idealised after-life.
Adapting such an adult book for a PG audience is nothing short of ridiculous and dangerous. Challenging the minds of children by presenting them with different ideas is to be encouraged, but perhaps not ideas that bash the foundation of faith based value systems.
Can you imagine an army of 12 year olds on our streets all challenging God? And aren’t existential dilemmas usually reserved for adulthood? Quite interestingly and paradoxically though, perhaps Pullman wants to diminish ‘passive faith’ at a young age in order to avoid such existentialism later in life.
Casting our minds back to ‘The Wizard of Oz’, challenging the authority of a senile ‘God-type’ wizard was evident but with values such as hope and faith still intact, much to the pleasure of Dorothy. In grave and great contrast, Pullman’s two child heroes dissolve the authority of a senile authoritarian ‘God’ type character.
I’m sure readers of the trilogy will be curious to watch this movie but whether it is suitable for a PG audience is another concern. Aside from the underlying message and regardless of the gold dust that is shed in battle instead of blood, there is too much fighting for a pre-teen audience.
With special effects costing over 180 million dollars and a combination of good acting it will ensure you won’t walk out. Daniel Craig plays the Uncle of the young heroine Lyra, and Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter who manages to light up the screen despite her sinister character. You’ll have to wait to see more of Craig in the sequel since he is only in a handful of the many scenes that don’t thread together well.
Other Hollywood fantasy movies have proven hits at the box office but ‘The Golden Compass’ is not one for them. ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ have passed the test where audiences have loved the movies despite not having read the books. The same cannot be said of Chris Weitz’s adaptation.
Further, the young heroine Lyra is singled out, much like a Harry Potter, but there is no depth to her character and you are not on ‘her side’ as you are with the likes of otherworldly ‘Frodo’ type heroes. Still, Pullman’s imagination translates on screen with ideas such as the soul belonging to humans, scampering at the side of individuals in the form of animals (monkeys, rodents and cats).
With a handful of U.S imperialism for the holidays (the American cowboy seems to save the day in every sticky situation) the movie still has the ability to make those with testing nerves jump out of their seats. Competition is on its way this season with contributions from Will Smith’s thriller “I am Legend” and Nicolas Cage’s “National Treasure” sequel. “The Golden Compass” may not have blown audiences away, but it has managed to direct (pardon the pun) inquisitive beings toward Pullman’s dark matter.
Having opened in the U.K on 5th December, this movie adaptation of the first book “Northern Lights” has us follow the adventures of a streetwise 12 year old girl called Lyra Belacqua (played by Dakota Blue Richards). She travels through multiple worlds populated by witches (one of whom is played by Eva Green), armour-plated bears, and sinister ecclesiastical assassins to defeat the oppressive forces of the ‘ruling’ order, a nefarious church known as the “Magesterium”.
The movie is the bait for the books which are allegedly and fundamentally anti-religion. One of the novel’s pagan characters puts it, “every church is the same: control, destroy, and obliterate every good feeling”. The books get even darker with adult themes such as female circumcision and castration.
Given this, it seems frightening that Pullman wants kids to buy the books after having watched ‘The Golden Compass’. He reportedly wants kids to decide ‘against god and the kingdom of heaven’ which has drawn fire from concerned Christians, who have dubbed Pullman’s work as ‘atheism for kids’.
Apparently a proud atheist, and described as the most dangerous author in Britain, Pullman wants to ‘kill God’ in the minds of children. Having sold 15 million copies worldwide, he opposes C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” and wrote the trilogy in contrast to the latter. His long term aim is to convince us to object to ideological tyranny which endorses a rejection of this world, in favour of an idealised after-life.
Adapting such an adult book for a PG audience is nothing short of ridiculous and dangerous. Challenging the minds of children by presenting them with different ideas is to be encouraged, but perhaps not ideas that bash the foundation of faith based value systems.
Can you imagine an army of 12 year olds on our streets all challenging God? And aren’t existential dilemmas usually reserved for adulthood? Quite interestingly and paradoxically though, perhaps Pullman wants to diminish ‘passive faith’ at a young age in order to avoid such existentialism later in life.
Casting our minds back to ‘The Wizard of Oz’, challenging the authority of a senile ‘God-type’ wizard was evident but with values such as hope and faith still intact, much to the pleasure of Dorothy. In grave and great contrast, Pullman’s two child heroes dissolve the authority of a senile authoritarian ‘God’ type character.
I’m sure readers of the trilogy will be curious to watch this movie but whether it is suitable for a PG audience is another concern. Aside from the underlying message and regardless of the gold dust that is shed in battle instead of blood, there is too much fighting for a pre-teen audience.
With special effects costing over 180 million dollars and a combination of good acting it will ensure you won’t walk out. Daniel Craig plays the Uncle of the young heroine Lyra, and Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter who manages to light up the screen despite her sinister character. You’ll have to wait to see more of Craig in the sequel since he is only in a handful of the many scenes that don’t thread together well.
Other Hollywood fantasy movies have proven hits at the box office but ‘The Golden Compass’ is not one for them. ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ have passed the test where audiences have loved the movies despite not having read the books. The same cannot be said of Chris Weitz’s adaptation.
Further, the young heroine Lyra is singled out, much like a Harry Potter, but there is no depth to her character and you are not on ‘her side’ as you are with the likes of otherworldly ‘Frodo’ type heroes. Still, Pullman’s imagination translates on screen with ideas such as the soul belonging to humans, scampering at the side of individuals in the form of animals (monkeys, rodents and cats).
With a handful of U.S imperialism for the holidays (the American cowboy seems to save the day in every sticky situation) the movie still has the ability to make those with testing nerves jump out of their seats. Competition is on its way this season with contributions from Will Smith’s thriller “I am Legend” and Nicolas Cage’s “National Treasure” sequel. “The Golden Compass” may not have blown audiences away, but it has managed to direct (pardon the pun) inquisitive beings toward Pullman’s dark matter.
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